Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Some crap TV is good for the soul, but some is just cankerous, or: I watch Aussie Ladette to Lady and want to release those poor women from captivity

I'm afraid to say that by default I am watching Aussie Ladette to Lady. So far (and I did watch one of the UK series during a bout of late-night TV addiction), my main objection has been the overt lesson that there are good girls and sluts, and men won't marry sluts as they aren't suitable for breeding. I wish I were paraphrasing there.

Tonight however - hysterical ickiness that illustrates the link between animal cruelty and the objectification of, and violence against, women. The 'ladies' have already served drinks to a traditional hunt (y'know ... where the hunters just chase the fox who enjoys it very much and there's no kill. That one.), but today they are competing for the opportunity to represent Eggleston Hall at the next hunt. Huzzah. Part of the competition is to hang up a brace of dead pheasants, dumped on the floor in a heap of soft, crumpled, twisted bodies, on to sharp hooks suspended from their classroom ceiling. Sound the joyous trumpets.


I don't care if it's country. It's foul.


But hope might bloom: one girl just said that the Hall was trying to turn the girls into "decorated fuck dolls for men's pleasure" - and that is a direct quote! Yes! Marry me Ladette! She has put her finger on it exactly - this show does not think that these are young women who might need to mind their manners a bit as part of the social contract and who might benefit from a few nights off the piss, but that they are there to learn 'arts' that will transform them from masculinised, unmarriageable sluts into perfectly amenable purchased uterii for the benefit of the parade of 'suitable' young men before whom they are paraded and given a trial run with over the course of certain social events (I always cheer when they end up getting off under the stairs like normal people).

Apparently, accordingly to the survivor of the Two Fat Ladies who teaches cookery on the show, men just love sausage rolls. She's not teaching them in case they like sausage rolls (vegan issue aside). Yep, yep, male privilege at its most internalised best.

I have just heard the girls being told that at Eggleston Hall that they need to be "demure, graceful, and in control of themselves'. Demure. I must now turn it off or risk feminist/vegan/general aversion to crap television explosion. I also don't want to hear a 21 year old girl told by her 'teachers' that she is scum. While she is crying.


I have many words for you, Eggleston Hall, and none of them are ladylike. But they are all correct.

1 comment:

x said...

I think I saw 5 minutes of the U.K version once and won't be watching the Australian version, sounds like that was a good idea from your review.